Taking out a loan for college can be messy, feel messy with the foreign terminology and numbers. But thankfully there are resources to help students with their Financial Aid planning and eventual repayments. Saving you the trouble of having to comb through Student Aid’s website, I’ve compiled five quick and important things you need to know about student loans.

One thing to note is if you’re a parent that took out a parent PLUS loan to help pay for your child’s education. PLUS loans cannot be forgiven. For the full chart on which loans and situations allow for forgiveness, click here.

Grace Period

A grace period is the time before you’re required to repay your loan, and is given to students after they graduate, leave school, drop out, or fall below half-time credits. It essentially gives students time to settle financially. Direct subsidized, unsubsidized and Federal Stafford loans offer a six-month grace period while Parent PLUS loans do not have one.

Your grace period isn’t set in stone. If you’re called into active military duty for more than 30 days before the end of your period, when you return you’ll get the full six months of grace period. For full details on what can change the grace period, click here.

Consolidating

You can consolidate your loans through the U.S. government for no fee, which can make payments easier in the future. A number of loan types are eligible for consolidation like Direct, Stafford, PLUS, Perkins, subsidized and subsidized loans. Take note, consolidating your loans into one payment, means longer payment plans and with a longer payment plan, higher interest per payment. Consolidating loans means you may lose benefits from the original lender like reduced interest rates too. Once you consolidate your loans, you can’t reverse it, so be sure to know before hand if it’s something you really want to do.

Repayment Plans

You’ll be given a repayment plan from your loan servicer but can change it at anytime. Direct, subsidized and unsubsidized loans allow a payment plan for up to 10 years of at least $50 per month. For the full table check out this link. StudentAid.gov even has a pretty cool student loan Repayment estimator. All you have to do is sign in with your Federal Student Aid PIN.

Deferment and Forbearance

Deferment means you won’t have to make payments for a limited time period. You can set this up with your loan servicer and the government can even pay your accumulated interest during this time if you’re paying off a Stafford, Direct, or Perkins subsidized loan. You can defer a payment when you’re enrolled in college at-least half time, or taking part in a fellowship, or unemployed. For the full list of scenarios, check it out here.

A forbearance is when you’re not eligible for a deferment. A forbearance can reduce or stop your payments for up to 12 months. The government will not pay your interest during forbearance, a key difference from deferments. For more info on forbearance, check it out here.